Fieldwork moment: perpetually blown away by how staff of even the most basic services (e.g. GED education) are forced to apply for grant funding to meet their org's essential services.
Like... even if the grants are mostly guaranteed, that they just have to apply for the money, the fact that people in positions of social service have to dedicate valuable time and energy and stress to this is so intense
200 people showed up today to this #blacklivesmatter rally organized by local teenagers in Marinette, WI despite dozens of death threats from local white supremacists. Marinette is a little remote city of 10K people about 60 miles north of Green Bay.
We were fortunate enough to have folks open-carrying on our side to show that we aren't fucking around. One of the reasons I love the rural left :-)
This piece by @MarkMuro1@BrookingsInst is asking interesting questions, but I think a more pressing question is, will an increase in telework get people to the rural communities where they are needed most? My dissertation research says no, a thread. 1/
There's decades of research at this point in rural sociology and geography that show amenity-rich rural places (e.g., the communities in the intermountain west near national parks, skiing, etc) have captured the vast majority of rural population growth since the 1980s. 2/
The past 10-15 years have seen a big increase in legislation and public private partnerships that promote high-tech entrepreneurship and innovation, expansion of broadband, and other tech initiatives in rural communities. My research looks at how this is happening in Michigan. 3/
More rural poverty porn, this time in the guise of education deserts in rural Michigan. Bachelors degrees won't save rural communities, and here's a few reasons why:
Framing 4yr degree granting institutions as ticket out of rural poverty is misleading and bad journalism (see @tressiemcphd's work on how for-profit colleges have taken advantage of this push for 4yr degrees by exploiting poor people, people of color, and women's financial aid $)
Classification of education deserts is biased in favor of 4yr unis. It ignores community colleges and trade schools in its determination, places where rural ppl are likely to get access to higher ed that will give them degrees that support their staying in rural places
One of my favorite things about living in a rural place is not feeling the social pressure (and resulting guilt) of needing to engage in new convenience economy services: no uber eats, no same day delivery, no lyft, no scooters.
It’s wild to think about the millions of people tricked into participating in this weird race to the bottom because of the economic and social pressures to take advantage of new services that make their life easier so they can spend more time working or hating themselves i guess
Of course, some conveniences trickle into rural areas over time. For example, i finally have real two day prime shipping, instead of three to five day shipping depending on the time of the week i order. Not saying I don’t benefit from certain aspects of it.
I agree that Internet infrastructure as the lone way we address urban and rural digital disparity is a poor route, but this @washingtonpost op-ed is full of bad statistics and misrepresentation of the Internet needs of rural America: a thread
Yes, three times as many urban households are without broadband, but over four times as many people live in urban areas than rural areas. So, proportionally more rural people are without broadband.
The new Internet options pitched by FCC are BS: 1) satellite internet is $$$ & doesn't work majority of the; 2) how will mergers of companies who don't serve rural areas bring internet to rural areas (your guess is as good as mine); 3) federal infrastructure money doesn't go far
I've been engaged for 18 months and am getting married in less than a month. It's been phenomenal to have relatives and friends actively going to bat for me with homophobic relatives who are on the fence about attending.
My fiancé's sister drove to fucking Tennessee two weeks ago and convinced my future in-laws to attend the wedding (even though they've never acknowledged I exist). My own sister has been having very intentional conversations with loved ones about their attendance for over a year.
As it gets closer to the wedding and key relatives I really care about haven't RSVPed, I find myself getting emotional about these sort of things and worried about how it will affect the wedding, my relationships with those ppl, etc.